Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Fiction Tuesday - Sisterhood Everlasting

When I started writing about the Sisterhood ten years ago, I wanted to create characters with big, open-ended lives--girls who wouldn't fit into a single novel. At the same time, I wanted to tell a proper story with a beginning, middle, and end. So I planned a four-book sequence to tell that story. And as I got to the end, I realized I was ready for the end of that story, but not remotely ready for the end of the characters. They were only nineteen, after all. They had so much life ahead of them! I didn't want to miss it. Would their friendship survive adulthood? Who, if anyone, would they marry? What about having babies? What career would Carmen choose? Would "someday" ever come for Lena and Kostos?-Ann Brashares

A lot of us grew up with these characters. The author has shown us so much what friendship is through her Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series. So fans were eager to savor this novel by Ann Brashares. Of course, some of the fans feel that these women are not the girls we remember. It takes place when the Septemberers, Tibby, Lena, Carmen and Bridget are around 30 years old. Warning: It is a sad book. To some its a lovely summer read, but many will find the book packed with emotions.

The story starts with Tibby who's up and left the country with long-time boyfriend Brian. She's gone to Australia. Yet, she contacts the others to meet up at Lena's grandparents in Greece. Of course, the book is packed with those fascinating quotes that Brashares always puts at the beginning of chapters. Her writing is more mature than ever. But as one fan put it.."Its happy tears at the end of the book."

Its one book many readers have been eager to get a hold of this summer.